Showing posts with label Marc Gunn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marc Gunn. Show all posts

Monday, March 4, 2013

I Have Been... (Pt. 1)

I have been watching this blog languish as I work on two others:  Booknotes from Literacy-chic and Teaching, Training, Blogging, but I still have some real affection for this, my first entry into blogging.  Most of the people who know me as a blogger know me through this blog, though I'm not sure whether it's listed with search engines any more.  I suspect not...  So while I don't know that I'll blog regularly here, I do want to stop by--perhaps monthly--to post a little update.  This was always my introspective blog, so it feels appropriate.  My friend Chris gave me the idea, but I'm going to make mine a 3-part series.

I have been...

Writing

Oh so many things lately!  Nothing creative right at this moment, except insofar as criticism is creative (and I think it is!  In fact, I feel like everything I write has an element of the creative, which is why I love it.)

First, I am writing on what is now my primary blog, Booknotes from Literacy-chic.  I am blogging my way through Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, and I am working on book 3, Voyager.  This is not a book review project, but a "notable moments" project.   Rather than discuss any one particular thread, theme, or issue, or the book as a whole, in a "big picture" way, providing lots of examples to illustrate my point, I am isolating scenes, moments, paragraphs or lines that resonate--with me, or with the work as a whole.  Sometimes these "notable moments" posts connect, suggesting ways in which they might form a whole literary argument, but...  I'm not ready to go there yet.

More recently, I created the blog Teaching, Training, Blogging in order to have a place to blog the connections between university teaching as I learned to practice it, and training, which I am doing now.  Although training makes a big issue of the needs of adults, the ways in which training literature seeks to engage the adult learner resemble the ways in which university instructors talk about engaging the undergraduate learner. However, training has a biased and unfavorable view of university teaching, while higher education sees only utilitarian aims in training.  I want to bring these together, if for nothing else, to help me stay connected to the higher education classroom and learn from my present situation.

Finally, I have been volunteer-blogging new updates for Marc Gunn on his blog, and occasionally on Celtic Music Magazine.  Marc is a Celtic musician, promoter of Celtic music, and producer of numerous podcasts including my favorite (and really, the only one I listen to regularly), The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast.  I have loved his podcast for years, and it's fun connecting with Marc's efforts to promote Celtic music while developing my "blogging for others" and "blogging for promotion" skills.

Reading

Blogs, for one.  I have taken to perusing my feeds in Google Reader again, taking a look at the blog circle that I once thought of as home.

Series, for another.  I am enjoying reading fiction series in a way that I haven't in years (if you count The Chronicles of Narnia and the Little House books).  I am conflicted about this.  It's one thing to read a series when the author is dead.  There's no waiting involved.  But living authors just keep writing, which keeps me reading.  I enjoy Rick Riordan, Gail Carriger, Cassandra Clare (well, mostly), and Diana Gabaldon in particular, each of whom has one or more series on the go.

And finally, eBooks.  I have a Kindle Paperwhite now.  I thought long and hard about it, but I do love the immediacy of always having--or being able to acquire easily--a book that I want.  It makes for a different kind of reading experience, especially since I like to write about what I read.  And I do still like physical books--of course--but they only occupy one location at a time, which means that if you leave the book at home, it's at home, and you can't get to it if you're not at home.  With my Kindle books, I have them on my iPod, my Kindle, my work computer, and my home computer--oh! and on Google Chrome!--and each of those locations can come in handy.  But I sometimes make poor reading choices based on free or $0.99 books.  Ugh.  I'll never get those hours back...

Listening

Mainly, I listen to the sound of my my keyboard clicking, or the deafening silence of my office.  But in the car, to and from work, I listen to the The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast, my Celtic playlist (largely comprised of songs I discovered through the podcast) and my Alternative playlist.  This morning, I was listening to Cake.

This meme has 9 items, so I'll be posting again on Wednesday and Friday!  Hope you've still got me in a feed reader!

Friday, February 2, 2007

Celtic Music, Anyone?

I don't know if I'm suffering from an excess of ideas this week, or if none of my thoughts on any given thing, idea, or incident are fully formed. So instead of just rambling on whichever topic I happen to catch as it passes by, I will offer this public service announcement (at least I think it's a public service!).

I've had an on-again, off-again thing going on with my iPod. I love the idea of the iPod, but I don't tend to find myself in situations that allow me to block out the rest of the world. I don't walk across campus, since when I am on campus, it is generally to teach or meet in "my" building (we've all got one. . .). I miss the walking, especially on cool, crisp sunny days. I have one of those little doohickeys that allows me to broadcast my iPod to my car stereo, which is cool, but I don't always remember to bring it to the car, etc. Until recently, I had to download my podcasts at school because of the high-speed connection. Now we have DSL. And I remembered to update my iPod. And it's charged.

So. . . I've been listening to an incredible podcast sporadically for several months, and I just had to spare some words for the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. For those of you in Austin, it's done by Marc Gunn, who is in your neighborhood! I met him once at a Sci Fi, etc. "con" at the university where I currently exist, signed up for his band's (The Brobdingnagian Bards) email list, until Yahoo! kicked me off because I hadn't checked my email in, oh, years. . . So imagine my surprise to learn that he has an awesome podcast! At the time, I was wondering how I could discover new cool music with an utter absence of decent radio stations in my area. Problem solved! The Irish and Celtic Music Podcast is currently in the top 25 podcasts in iTunes, so check them out if you like Celtic music.

Just to get you started, the "new year" podcast was a collection of listener favorites from last year, and is quite a nice mix. It is #29 and was released on January 4, 2007.

Many of my favorites from the last year are included on episode #29, but some other favorite songs/artists have been:

Podcast #25 -"Old Carrion Crow" Michael William Harrison
Podcast #25-"The Scottish Song" Seamus Kennedy (MacBeth in a nutshell--a must hear!)

The Brobdingnagian Bards have a number of amusing songs, and of course, the ones that make you spit out your coffee in the car are the easiest to remember (include in this category "The Scottish Song," above). So from the Bards:

Podcast #24-"Now It's Time To Go" (from Memories of Middle Earth)
Podcast #17 -"The Orange and The Green"
Podcast #16 -"The Unicorn Song"
Podcast #15 -"Jedi Drinking Song"

This turned out to be much more of a Bards plug than I intended, but they have the funny songs, and like I said, funny sticks. This podcast is, overall, great celtic music--funny and serious, so enjoy!